Author: Alastor

You will not accomplish anything great if you’re too afraid to tell anyone about it.

But when you have anything worth saying, some people will hate you. That’s a fact. Self-promotion exposes you to ridicule and negativity from the all the haters out there.

Self-promotion is no accident

Every day, we see politicians, business executives, musicians, actors and athletes on TV or in the news. This was not an accident. Every one of them intentionally exposed themselves to the press. They asked for it. They demanded our attention.

Have you ever been approached by the press to share your accomplishments? Have you ever asked for it?

Many people think celebrities inherently get press because of their occupation. This is not true. You have to reach out to get it. Even when they’ve reached the top, they still have to give people a reason to listen.

The same goes for you. When you want to accomplish a goal, you have to tell people about it. You won’t succeed at selling a product or service if no one knows about it. And it all starts with your personal brand as the product.

We live in a competitive market. Just as products need to differentiate themselves against the competition, so do people. When your personal brand is the product, some people just won’t want to buy.

Why should a company hire you instead of the competition? Why do people buy into you?

Products don’t have feelings

A unique personal brand (your product) makes the difference. Tangible products don’t have feelings. But people do. When a customer says, “I hate the iPhone”, and chooses an Android instead, the iPhone doesn’t care. The business executives running Apple care, but the phone does not. The little iPhone didn’t get offended. Its feelings didn’t get hurt. It didn’t cry or get angry or become demoralized. It just sat on the shelf for one more day.

People on the other hand, feel those emotions. Engaging in self-promotion to get your personal brand out there risks people choosing the other product. Except this time, they may say, “I hate you.”

Has someone ever said that to you?

I know a few of my ex-girlfriends have. Does that mean I shouldn’t date anymore? No.

The risk of rejection does not outweigh the benefit of a great relationship. Same concept applies in business. You have to put yourself out there. If you want to get noticed, you have to stand for something. But…you’ll have to overcome the fear of the haters.

The most successful people in the world regardless of their occupation or opinion have to deal with the negativity. It is unavoidable in your rise to popularity.

The President can take it

Consider the position of President Obama. Forget about your personal political position for a second. This is not a political endorsement. In the last US presidential election of 2012, 62 million people voted for Obama while 59 million people voted for Romney. 59 million voted against him! That’s a lot of people publicly expressing support for the competition. Same goes for Romney. 62 million people said “we don’t believe in you.” Few can stomach this level of opposition.

Political success is dependent on the ability to self-promote. And success is easily quantified by the number of supporting votes. President Obama and the Democratic Party spent $985 million marketing their message to the American people. That’s a lot of money to promote a personal brand.

Any level of success in business comes at a price. Some people will HATE you. That’s the way it is and the way it always will be.

Thousands of people may LOVE you. But one nasty email, blog comment, facebook message, text or phone call from a hater can be devastating.

So what do you do?

Ignore them. Forget about them. They are not your audience. They are not your customer. They are not your friend. There are 7 billion people in the world. Who cares what one a$$hole thinks. In your case, for every 1 hater there are probably 100 supporters. Go find them.

You don’t have to start by talking to newspapers or a television networks. Start with the people around you. Start defining your personal focus, your personal message. Define the audience you want to attract. Then start standing for something. Have an opinion.

Nobody says, “Hey, I wanted to talk to you because you’re really good at being like everyone else.”

Take the risk of self-promotion. You will reap the rewards. People can’t help you achieve your goals if you don’t share them. And you can’t solve anyone’s problem if they don’t know about your skills.

Do you have friends just blending in? Maybe reading this paper will light a fire under them to take action and succeed more in business!

Did you know that you could monetize your WordPress blog? It’s a nice feature that allows you to make money by doing something you love, which is what makes it very tempting. However, it’s difficult to know how to do it, as some of the ways you’re advised to use are scams, and they can cost you a lot. So, what should you do?

This article will present to you six top ways to monetize your blog without losing your existing followers.

Communicate With Your Readers

One great way to make money while maintaining your existing fan base is by engaging in email marketing. Through this, you can reach out to your readers in a more personal manner and make sure they enjoy sticking around.

Basically, you can consider having a newsletter but if not, you can sign up on different sites which helps you send automated messages to people who sign up. By doing this, you are welcoming readers into your world and they will be more likely to stay.

Make a WordPress Event Calendar which has Paid Submissions

WordPress gives you the option to make a calendar and ask people to advertise their own events. When you have an existing audience, this works really well because not only you give them something and show that you care, but you also have businesses who would pay to reach your readers.

That being said, this is a nice method to monetize your blog, especially if it focuses on the local industry.

Make T-Shirts for Sale with WordPress

Who doesn’t like a cool t-shirt? It works amazingly for most casual occasions, whether you’re going out or just going to the store. This is why creating your own t-shirt shop with WordPress is such a good idea. You will offer something nice to your audience while also monetizing your blog this way.

It’s really cool as you don’t only get the chance to create something nice, but you will also get a profit share if you work with printing services.

Use Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a method that works by including links to products from another company’s affiliate program. When your readers are clicking those links, you will receive parts of the costs made on the product, thus winning some cash.

Of course, you need to know how affiliate marketing actually works and not simply link to products. First of all, you have to promote products that have something to do with your industry, as well as the products you’ve used before. This will be more effective and ensure you’ll receive your cut.

Create Content for Restricted Members Only

Among all of your readers, there must be some who are completely in love with your content and are sure to stand by your side no matter what. You could use this to your advantage by creating a paid membership site which will make them pay to read more of what you offer. You can also create a members-only area for them to help them connect, as well as exchange pictures, videos, and many others, and they will love it.

Sell Online Courses

Another great way to make money from your blog is by hosting online courses. Through this, you can teach your ways for people who love your content and what to get into blogging as well, or many other things. If people love what you do, they will be more willing to pay for the courses. As such, you’ll be the one earning some money.

Keep in mind that your courses will need lessons, and you will have to gather supporting materials such as slides, templates and many others.

Monetizing a website can be difficult if you want to also keep your readers, as the last thing you want is flooding their browser with ads and losing their love. That can be avoided by implementing the methods above, and you’ll successfully earn money through blogging.

As much as you would like it, creating converting landing page content is not exactly a piece of cake. It can be very tricky and take a while to properly establish. The problem sometimes is that having a nice design and a functional landing page is not enough. In spite of those, the page doesn’t convert. So what to do to gain more customers?

Luckily for you, we made a guide that will tell you some tricks you should try in order to turn your page to a high converting one. Keep reading, and you’ll find out.

Add Testimonials

Do you really think that featuring heavenly pictures of happy people and talking about how good your business is will convince people on the spot? It would be easier if things went like that, but people rarely trust these things nowadays. After all, scammers can hide behind any corner, so people’s behavior is not really to blame.

This is why testimonials are such a great tool – they will let you feature the reviews given by former customers in an attempt to show others how reliable you are. If they send a picture using the product, or a “before and after” picture, even better. Make sure you consider testimonials and conversions will boost.

Find Out Your Target Audience

There will always be a certain audience interested in a particular brand, meaning not all people are going to be interested, but rather a group of people. Therefore, you must find out which is your target audience, and then work to create landing page content for them, not for anyone else.

Knowing who these people are will allow you to implement proper stuff on your page, stuff that will convert. For example, people learn differently – while some prefer long-form content, others would rather watch a video. In addition, all images and written content on the page needs to be adapted in such a way that it converts.

So, make sure to do lots of research on your customers before working on a proper landing page content, and you’ll be able to grow the conversions.

Make a Good Impression

If your landing page is full of irrelevant, boring information, the fact that conversions are very low is not exactly a surprise. Basically, the landing page is the first thing a customer sees when visiting your company’s website, so you don’t want to make a bad first impression and ruin everything.

In order to make a good impression, make sure to add only essential stuff to the page, like pictures, information and anything else that is sure to attract people.

Focus on the Benefits

One mistake that many companies do on their landing page is focusing too much on the product and not enough on the benefits it has to offer. You don’t want to sound desperate and oversell your product, because it will only have the opposite effect. Instead, use your time to feature some of the benefits your product has to offer. This way, you’ll convince more people that your product is what they want.

Also, don’t forget that people care the most about themselves, so they have to know what they will obtain from trying out what you have to offer. This is why you must include it on the landing page.

Final Thoughts

You need to prioritize your audience’s needs if you want to successfully boost conversions through your landing page. Spend a lot of time building the landing page so that it build flow, and make sure you follow the tips in this post to succeed. But remember everything works better in combination, so read this impacts of social media essay so you will know how use social media with your landing page.

On May 17, 2017 the Electronic Sports League (ESL) counter strike global offensive championship playoff will be held at Melbourne. The ESL is a regional sport league based in Australia which is dedicated to rehabilitating children on the streets and nurturing talents of the young generation (ESL, 2016). As a result of this noble cause, the league has gained famed all over Australia and also in neighboring countries as well. The league mainly focuses on e-gaming and unknown to many people, this is an example of a sport as well just like regular football. The championship playoffs will therefore aim to introduce electronic video gaming as a sport and as a result try to schedule future championship as such on the Australian and New Zealand sports calendar. A lot of planning will be involved in preparing for the event as there will be a large group of important individuals attending the match. Such individuals include government representatives from the ministry of sporting and recreational activities. Welfare organization will also be in attendance and it is important that the day be a success so as to attract a large pool of sponsors who would be willing to drive us into the next generation of electronic sporting. The event will be held at PAX Australia which is the largest video gaming convention in the southern hemisphere (Wagner, 2016). The management has gone all the way to pull the strings and given gamers a chance to show case their skills in the heart of gaming.

AFLAC should not use the same advertising campaign inJapan as in the United States becauseit uses advertisementin the two markets to accomplish different goals. For instance, in the United States, AFLAC is trying to create awareness about its brand, through introducing the AFLAC duck. The author states in the article that through the advertising, 90 percent of the US population is now aware of its AFLAC brand.Furthermore, AFLAC’s policies have risen by over 50 percent.However, in the Japanese market, the company has distinguished its products from other competitors and has consequently managed to maintain a leading position.Having identical advertising in the two markets is of no value because of the company has different aims in the two markets. Furthermore, the marketsvary in various aspects.For instance, the American insurance market is characterized by many players such as Prudential, AIG or MetLife among others.The Japanese market is characterized by health-conscious consumers,making them potential consumers of supplemental insurance products that the company offers.As such, the approaches to advertisement campaign in the two markets should differ depending on the varying characteristics of the markets.Although AFLAC has introduced the menekineko duck in Japan, it should not introduce it in the US as well. This is because it is only traditional inJapan and would not enable the company to realize its business objectives in the US.

Question two

Since AFLAC’s success in Japan is attributed to the distribution system it has been using in the country, it should continue adapting its business activities to the Japanese ways of doing things.The company’s business strategies seem to work well in the Japanese market andtherefore, it is recommendable that it continues in a similar manner as this enables it to achieve its goals for existence in Japan.It is currently delivering high quality and satisfying services to its customers.AFLAC should act more Japanese than American while doing business in Japan.This would enable itto improve the way it distributes its products and puts it in a betterposition to face new competitors in the market.Being in the Japanese market for a considerably long period of time helps it distinguish itself from the new competitors.

Question three

After the introduction of the Financial Big Bang policy that encourages new entrants in the market, AFLAC has managed to maintain its position in the supplemental insurance market through lowering its operating costs,and streamlining its operations thereby allowing its sales teamto submitpolicy applications online as well as introducing online billing techniques. Moreover, it stepped up its recruitment of sales agents, gave them specialized training and developed new insurance products for them to start selling. It also entered into a strategic alliance with Japan’s second largest insurance firm, Dai-ichi Mutual Life as a means of maintaining a leading position in the market. It should also consider further improving the quality of its service delivery to its customers to maintain its large share of the customer base.

Question four

AFLAC’s reliance on the Japanese market creates a special challenge for the company. It may experience this if Japan decides to develop business policies that hinder foreign businesses with the aim of promoting local companies. This may cause a drastic fall in the company’s profits because its profits in the home market are generally low. This does not present any opportunities to the company.

Status offenders are minors who commit an offense that would not be considered as a crime if an adult were to engage in it. This means that the action is only seen to be a violation of the law mainly because the youth is still a minor (McNamara, 2012). Examples of these status offenses vary by state, but some of the most common ones include running away from home, truancy, ungovernability, violating a city or county curfew, and underage possession, consumption & use of alcohol and tobacco (Elrod, 2013). Every status offender is accorded the same due-process rights as the juveniles who have been accused of committing a crime and will have a formal juvenile record if the court will find them guilty of committing a status offense. If a minor who was found guilty of a status offense commits another crime or status offense, they are viewed as repeat offenders are subjected to a stricter punishment (Hesse, 2013). Common punishments for the status offenders include suspension of their driver’s license, paying a fine or restitution, placing them in a foster home or group home or with a relative, and being ordered to go for counseling programs. It is critical to prosecute these status offenses because if they are pardoned every time they commit these crimes, it can contribute to delinquency later in their life, the youths will be at a higher risk of engaging in drug use and taking part in risky behaviors. If they are not directed in the right path and are left to do what they want they will be at risk of having physical and mental health problems which include addiction (Greenwood and Susan, 2011). Most of these juvenile offenders commit crimes as a way of rebelling because of being abused, neglected, and deep family issues. Because of these problems they must be put on strict supervision to understand better how to help them to rise above their difficulties or even protect them from those that abuse them. Conclusion Status offenses might be typical behaviors in adolescents, but they can also be symptoms of underlying problems at home or in school that need closer attention. It is important that as they get punished for their offenses, there should be a background check of these status offenders. The goal of punishing them is to rehabilitate the offender and deter them from repeating crimes.